Grosjean to speak to Charlie Whiting over NASCAR-style driving in F1

Haas’ Romain Grosjean has stated that he will speak with FIA Director Charlie Whiting at Spa to discuss limits of wheel-to-wheel racing.

This decision comes after Grosjean made contact with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg on the first lap of last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, with the stewards classifying it as a ‘racing incident’.

Hulkenberg also engaged in a battle with Grosjean’s teammate Kevin Magnussen which resulted with Magnussen receiving a five-second time penalty. More drama unfolded as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen collided with teammate Daniel Ricciardo, resulting in the Australian’s retirement from the race. The young Dutchman received a ten-second penalty for this.

“It was a big hit and I went pretty high in the air,” Grosjean spoke to Motorsport.com.

“He had lots of space on the inside, but he locked things up.

“I don’t see the difference between Nico and Verstappen, to be fair. Again, the stewards’ consistency is a bit strange.

“It was Turn 1 – but Spa-Francorchamps in 2012 was Turn 1, and we can’t do whatever we want. Turn 1, lap two, lap 10, it’s the same thing. You can’t run over another car.”

“Magnussen raced! It’s hard, and I do appreciate it’s very hard.

“But with Kevin there wasn’t even contact with Hulkenberg. Nico hit me, Kevin did not hit Nico, he just pushed him very, very wide.”

The Frenchman added that his meeting with Whiting will not be his first regarding the definition of racing, and he wants it to be clear what is and what is not allowed.

“It’s come up before,” Grosjean spoke.

“I went to see Charlie after that briefing because there was some great racing between Vettel and Verstappen in the last race, but it was off track and coming back, so I said what can we do?

“We want racing, but we don’t want wheel-banging, we’re not in NASCAR.“